Chapter - 6
LOGAN
I had no idea how to act around Eloise.
What was the social construct for this situation?
I had responded to her voice memos, saying that we should talk. She never responded to that, so I assumed that meant that she didn’t want to. However, she showed up here at the gym, knowing that I would be here with Courtney. Did that mean that she wanted to talk? Was I misreading her signals? Did she understand how difficult it was for me to communicate with someone who wasn’t competent in ASL?
She definitely checked me out, that much was obvious when I finished my reps on the bench press and caught her eyes. Eloise had a similar look on her face during the game once I left the penalty box. A look that almost took me out of the zone based on how easy to read she was.
She liked what she saw.
What threw me off was how she quickly punched Josh in the arm after we made eye contact, but I had to focus, so I hadn’t let myself think too much about the horny eyes she had blatantly given me during my game. But then I saw her horny eyes again tonight, catching her staring at me as I pressed what I assumed to be over twice her body weight.
She was attracted to me, that much I was sure of. What I couldn’t quite figure out was if she wanted me to do something about it. I assumed that if she really liked what she saw she would make the first move. Considering the communication barrier we had that, possibly, she had a kink about.
I was still holding Eloise’s wrist, warring with myself about how to approach this subject with her. Her breathing was shallow, her cheeks were flushed, and her pupils would expand if I stared at her directly for too long.
Suddenly, she tugged her wrist out of my grip and blurted, “I read alien erotica.”
I stared at her, my mouth parting at the sudden confession. That was…unexpected. Her face immediately turned tomato red, angering the freckles that dotted her nose.
Okay, I signed, feeling the confusion take over my facial features.
“I-I don’t know why I told you that.” Eloise closed her eyes as she set her weights on the ground, before covering her face with both of her palms. She was clearly embarrassed. Was she shaking? “I’m so sorry. Could you just,” she waved her hands at me, expecting me to cough something up I guess, “Get on with it already?”
What?I asked. I couldn’t keep up with the conversation we were having.
“Just say whatever you were going to say to let me know you aren’t interested,” Eloise rushed out on an exhale, scraping a hand down her flushed face again as her eyes avoided me. Let her down? So, those voice memos were about me? She is, in fact, interested in me?
“You know what,” Eloise waved a hand in between the both of us, “It’s okay, you don’t actually need to tell me. I already know. Don’t worry about it.” She nodded as she placed both of her hands on her hips, taking a deep breath through her nose and exhaling through her mouth as she lifted her head to stare at the ceiling.
Know what?I asked, but she wasn’t looking at me. She didn’t see my signing. My heart was racing, she had both confirmed my suspicions and assumed that I wasn’t interested in seconds.
I was interested.
I was very interested.
Did Eloise seem a little high-strung? Yes, but I was willing to look past that. Maybe it was because I hadn’t had sex in literal years. Maybe it was because Eloise was hot as sin. Whatever the reason was, I wanted to take this opportunity by the reins if it was available.
But I couldn’t fucking do that if she wouldn’t look at me.
I wouldn’t be able to get a word in with her even if I did vocalize.
I felt my frown take over before I thought better of it, stepping forward and wrapping one of my hands on the side of her face. Fingers behind her ear and my thumb on the line of her jaw, I forced her to lower her gaze from the ceiling and look at me. Her clear blue eyes widened in shock at the physical contact, and part of me scolded myself for touching her again without clear and obvious permission, but I was running out of options.
I held her gaze, relaxing my frown so that I wouldn’t scare her.
Courtney had already told me multiple times about how harsh my resting bitch face was.
I had already used it unintentionally on Eloise multiple times, I wasn’t about to fuck up another social interaction between us again.
I quickly let go of her face, now that I had her attention, and signed Stop. Her lips slammed shut at the word. I still had no idea how much ASL she really knew, but she managed to know basic core words at this point. How was I going to explain this to her in a way she would understand?
“You losers ready?” Courtney spoke up from behind me, making me clench my jaw at her timing. Like fuck was I going to try to explain myself to Eloise with Courtney nearby. I frowned, making Eloise’s eyes narrow a little in reaction. I gave up, stepping away from Eloise before I bent down to pick up her weights, handing them back to her.
Eloise took them again without a word.
“Tens? Wow, you’re really pushing yourself today, Lo.” Courtney winked at Eloise before grabbing her own weights.
I tried not to look too irritated because it wasn’t anyone’s fault really.
Except for maybe Eloise, for planting the idea of sex in my head, and then immediately shutting it down before I could even give her a proper response.
Fuck, I didn’t realize how badly I wanted her until we had to suffer through the rest of the workout with Courtney unintentionally third-wheeling us.
Oh really, moron?I thought, The number of times you jerked off in the shower simply because she brushed her hands over your stomach didn’t clue you in?
I was pathetic.
Eventually, we wrapped up our workout at the gym. We cooled off on the treadmills, me at a light jog whereas the girls strolled leisurely and held a conversation the entire fifteen minutes we were there. Then, we went over to the black mats near the front of the gym and stretched.
I was stretching forward, touching my toes with my hands when I glanced up and saw Eloise dislocate her hips mid-conversation.
Alright, she didn’t really dislocate her hips. I just couldn’t fathom stretching the way she was. She had leaned forward, pressing her palms flat in front of her as she tucked one of her legs high up, almost against her stomach. Her other leg was fully stretched out behind her. She then planted her hips down, over her tucked leg, and folded forward. She crossed her arms over each other and everything, continuing to chat with Courtney about who-the-fuck-knows-what as she became a human pretzel.
I was frozen mid-stretch, ignoring the pull in my hamstrings as I stared at her profile as she did this. The stretch did interesting things to her ass, which looked fantastic in those little bike shorts she was wearing.
Snapping fingers in my vision interrupted my thoughts, making me blink a couple of times and glare at Courtney.
“Were you paying attention to what we were saying?” Courtney asked, giving me a look that let me know she would for sure be roasting me for staring at Eloise’s ass later. It wasn’t even the first time I had stared at her ass tonight but, as far as I knew, it was the first time I had been busted for it.
What?I asked as I sat back up. I leaned back on my hands on the mats as I pretended to care about whatever Courtney had to say.
“Beach day, next weekend. You in?”
Was Eloise going to be there? Would she be wearing even less clothing than she was now?
Yes, I replied without really thinking too much more about it. I glanced over to the small woman who plagued my thoughts. She gave me a small, nervous smile in return. Holy fucking shit, did Eloise just smile at me? I was positive that was the first time that had happened since the first time we met and I was a grade-A prick to her.
A win is a win.
I followed the women out of the gym. The sun was setting, painting the sky in pinks and oranges. The glare from the sunset lit up Eloise’s blonde hair, which helped me keep my gaze on the back of her head as I saw them safely to their car. I waved as Courtney and Eloise pulled out of the parking lot and I walked a few feet over to my truck, replaying every moment tonight with Eloise.
To my knowledge, I hadn’t accidentally done anything to offend her.
And to top it all off, she gave me a small smile at the end of the night.
Hope sparked in my chest, and a little bit of excitement as well. I couldn’t remember the last time I had pursued a woman, because frankly, I hadn’t really needed to since I joined the NHL after college. There was always someone available, most of the time looking for something easy with no strings attached like I was.
Would Eloise want strings attached?
The thought made me pause as I reached for the handle of my truck. If anyone saw me, they would probably think I had forgotten how to open a car door. Shaking my head once and stepping up into my vehicle, I thought about that question a little more before deciding that it was a little too early to think about it. First, I needed to find a way to confirm that Eloise did, in fact, want to sleep with me. If she wasn’t even interested in sex, then the thought of a relationship with her was wasted energy. One step at a time.
***
Sometimes, more often than I’d like, I wanted to strangle my agent.
This was one of those times.
Connor James stood back behind the cameras in grey slacks and a perfectly pressed button-up shirt, staring down at his phone. His dark blonde brows furrowed at whatever he was reading. Not paying attention at all to the fuckery he was putting me through today.
Connor was also the agent of two other players on my team. Apparently, the Ducks” social media manager decided that we needed to spend more time online during the off-season to hype everybody up. Overall, we didn’t play well last year, and I guess by the end our ticket sales had proven that. When the social media manager, whose name escaped me, told Connor what she had in mind, he wasted no time agreeing.
Even though I hated this type of shit.
So here I was, taking my turn to pose wearing far too little hockey gear. Earlier today we filmed some shots at the rink where we all lip-synced to a popular trending sound on the internet. I was only included in about two seconds of the clip, and I had no idea why we were lip-syncing to a pop song, but I was contractually obliged to put up with a certain level of bullshit.
Was this considered pornographic? I asked myself. How else would you describe me wearing nothing but hockey pants and skates, posing in front of a white background with a freshly oiled and bare chest?
“Holy shit,” I heard our team social media manager breathe, and I turned to give her an annoyed look as she stared at me. “If anything, this content will definitely get more women to support the team.”
“You think?” Connor asked, the way his eyes trailed up and down the social media manager’s body made me want to roll my eyes.
“Oh yeah.” She ignored Connor’s perusal and met my gaze, a smirk tugging at her lips at my clearly annoyed expression. “If I wasn’t head over heels for my wife, I would definitely follow his account, specifically.” She smiled at me before glancing down at her iPad and tapping away on something. At the mention of a spouse, Connor noticeably took a half step away from her side.
God, the guy was the worst.
But he was all I had. He was the one who was willing to work with me after my previous agent quit. Connor stepped in during that clusterfuck, when my previous team was desperate to trade me because I was an aggressive asshole on the ice. Connor kept what was left of my career afloat, so I couldn’t just ditch him. No other agents, or even teams, have shown interest in me in the last few years, even after I had attended therapy and improved my overall performance.
“Can you look over there?” the photographer asked, making me turn my face to his. When our eyes met, he gulped and quickly hid behind the camera.
“Logan,” John Larsen, number thirty-one, called out right when the photographer snapped a photo. I was pretty sure I turned towards his voice too quickly because I heard the photographer grumble as soon as the flash went off. “Tug your pants down a little more.”
I furrowed my brows at him.
I glanced at the photographer, Connor, and the social media manager. They all gave me expectant looks.
Marketing.
I obliged, tugging them indecently low, earning a whistle from John. I lifted my middle finger at him in response.
“Sex sells, buddy.” John laughed. The photographer snapped a few more images and waved for the next player to take my place. I could feel every muscle in my body relax as I stepped off-set toward John.
You okay?John signed. John’s husband was completely deaf, which resulted in his ability to communicate with me via ASL. I was grateful because when I joined the team, he was a ringleader in getting the coaches to learn a few shorthand phrases that would help me be able to communicate on the ice since I couldn’t shout like everyone else.
I lifted a shoulder and responded, Just don’t like being paraded around like a show dog.
“Yeah, I’m sure your paycheck will help you get over it,” John replied. I flipped him off again before signing, asshole. I quickly tugged a shirt on, hating the feeling of the sticky oil against the fabric.
“Hockey romances are really having their moment,” John shrugged, “Having read a few myself, I understand Angie’s angle here.” John was always upbeat and good-natured, never irritated about anything. He was my opposite and sometimes reminded me of a guy version of Courtney.
I remembered Courtney telling me about hockey romances a while ago because she was introducing Josh to her love of reading romance novels, and for a while that was literally all they would talk about. I had gotten good at disassociating whenever the topic came up because I hadn’t read a romance novel once in my life and didn’t really plan to.
I remembered Eloise’s random declaration a few nights ago, I read alien erotica. The thought brought a smile to my face. It was so out of left field, and for some reason seeing her so embarrassed about it was almost endearing.
…Did Eloise read hockey romance novels? Or was she specifically into aliens?
Perhaps the social media manager (Angie, apparently) was going to be more helpful to me than I thought.
“All right, that’s it for today!” Angie clapped her hands after calling the group. Half the guys started clapping and cheering, too, as if we had all actually done something instead of lip sync pop songs and stand around half naked for the sake of sales.
“Hey, can I ask you guys something?” Connor had walked up to John and me right when we had each grabbed our bags to leave for the day.
“Sure, what’s up?” John replied. Connor thumbed away at his phone for a second longer before pocketing it and making eye contact with the two of us.
“If I had an opportunity for you guys to work with kids, would you be interested in that?” I hesitated, but John shrugged.
“Depends, what is it?”
“My daughter, Stella, used to go to this early intervention clinic”—Connor’s words were ringing a bell in my head for some reason—“It’s basically a place where kids with Down Syndrome and other conditions go for help. Anyway, if I set something up where you guys got involved, would that be something you’re into?”
“Yeah, I don’t mind kids,” John smiled, glancing over at me, and waited for my answer. I faced Connor and shrugged before a nod, confirming that I was okay with that.
Working with kids seemed better than stripping for the camera.
“It would be a good PR move, obviously,” Connor lowered his voice, as if discussing PR strategies was secretive, “And it’s not like we don’t need positive PR.”
Over recent years, many men in the NHL were getting expelled because of women speaking out about their sexual harassment. Recently, a number of claims have come up across the country. This was also happening with almost every male-dominated sport, ever. Based on what I had personally heard men say in the confines of the locker room over the entirety of my life, I wasn’t shocked that women were coming forward. Men in this field tended to have fragile egos, and women were almost always the victims of that.
So, in a roundabout way, I guess hockey really did need a bit of rebranding.
Was taking some pictures with kids for our social media accounts going to be the rebrand it really needed? No. But whatever.
I had also personally heard Connor say, “It’s not all men” whenever NHL allegations had come up in conversation, so I didn’t really bother to ask for his opinion on anything beyond our professional relationship. Courtney had explained it to me perfectly a few years ago. If you were a man who knew that he had never pressured a woman, you simply wouldn’t feel offended or threatened when women say blanket statements like, “men are trash.” You would be confident enough deep down to know that you did not fall into that category, but also be able to recognize that men are still ninety-nine percent of the perpetrators in sexual assault cases.
I hadn’t thought about the issue too much before that conversation, but that made a lot of sense to me. It stuck.
“Plus,” John spoke up, pulling me from my thoughts, “It would give me a way to show Alonzo what a wonderful parent I’d be.” John wiggled his blonde eyebrows at me and pulled his shoulder-length hair back into a bun. The guy had baby fever the last few years, and his husband was more hesitant (or realistic, however you wanted to look at it) about having children.
“Oh, yeah,” Connor smiled, as if he cared, “Anyways, I’ll reach out to you guys when I have more details.” John nodded and waved before taking off. I had intended to leave as well, but my phone buzzed and I halted my step to pull it out.
Courtney: Why are hockey terms so filthy?
Me: What do you mean?
Courtney: Gong show? Bender? Crease? Poke-check? Third man in?
Me: Lay off the smut.
Courtney: No. But also, gong show. Gong. Show.
“Do you date at all?” Connor’s voice made me glance up from my phone, confusion was evident on my face based on the sheepish smile that showed off his freshly whitened teeth. “I’m not hitting on you. I’m into women. I was just curious.” He eyeballed my phone as it buzzed again in my hand.
Courtney: I have successfully convinced Eloise that it is legitimately called the time-out box.
Courtney: I’m not correcting her. That’s what it’s called now.
Me: Classic.
“You probably don’t have any issue with women,” Connor’s voice reminded me that he was still here for some reason, so I gave him a bored look. “I get it. I can pull a bit myself, though, there is this one girl who has pretty much given me the cold shoulder.” His brows furrowed a little, his eyes distant as he thought about the, I assumed, intelligent woman who blew him off.
I shrugged; It happens. I signed. Connor didn’t know ASL, so he pretended to know what I said and just continued talking.
“We hooked up a while back. It was great, and then she just stopped responding to me. I tried not to worry about it, because it’s not like I don’t have other options.” It took everything in my power to not roll my eyes at him. He had shown me some pictures of women he had slept with, and they all looked half his age. It wasn’t something to brag about, in my mind.
It just made me wonder why he couldn’t seem to date a woman his own age.
“But I just ran into one of her friends recently, and now I can’t get her out of my head,” Connor sighed, crossing his arms as he stared at a point on the wall over my shoulder, “I don’t know. Should I try again?”
I shook my head, and then signed, No for good measure. Connor shrugged.
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Connor patted me on the shoulder, as if he and I were anything other than business associates and said goodbye as he walked over to speak with another one of his clients.
Courtney: You’re still coming on Saturday?
Ah, yes, the beach day. I was one hundred percent going to be there.
Me: I’m planning on it.
Courtney: Great. Could you do me a favor and wear a shirt? I don’t want to give my fiancé a stroke by being in a bikini and having him struggle between ogling me and ogling you.
I smirked as I walked through the facility doors that led to the parking lot, tapping away a reply as I made it to my car again. At first, it was weird to joke about Josh’s crush on my physique so openly, but that was how Courtney was. It was also how Josh was, and after a few jokes and seeing those two together, I knew that there was no chance in hell that Josh was actually interested in me when he had Courtney. The confidence and security they had with each other in their relationship was admirable.
Me: If Josh can’t control his thoughts when he sees too much of my skin, that’s his problem.
Words I had heard Courtney use in reference to other men ogling her at the gym.
Courtney: You know what? Fair.
Courtney: Want to carpool?
And be at someone else’s mercy in case I get bored and want to bail? No.
Me: I have some things to do beforehand, I’ll meet you guys there.
Me: Who is going?
Courtney: Everyone, minus the band. So be nice to Eloise.
Me: I was perfectly nice to her last time.
Courtney: Yeah, perfectly nice as you stared directly at her ass.
Courtney: You’re lucky that I caught you and she didn’t.
I frowned. I didn’t respond to that text until I had driven all the way home from the rink. I currently lived on the outskirts of Irvine, bordering Tustin where the gym that Courtney and I attended was. I lived in a small one-bedroom apartment and had for years. Most of the other guys on the team felt like they needed to blow their paycheck on luxury living, but I wasn’t one of them. I liked simplicity. I didn’t need much, and I liked the comfort of having spare funds in case of emergencies.
Courtney’s text still bounced around in my brain. What would have happened if Eloise caught me staring at her ass?
Me: You’re right. She probably would have dumped her water bottle on me or something.
I figured just admitting that I was an ass-starer would be the easiest route to go with Courtney.
Courtney: Probably.
I frowned again. Would Eloise react that way? Or would she be pleased to know that I appreciated her body like that? Would she tease me, wearing those little shorts more often whenever we were together with our friends?
I was getting ahead of myself. I still wasn’t sure where I stood with Eloise. I felt so unstable like one wrong move could send me plummeting down a black hole of nothing but hate and frustration from her. More pies squished to my chest, more insults to my genitalia.
I didn’t want that.
I generally didn’t care if people liked me or not. Such was life. You win some, you lose some. Even if I had let my little crush on her grow a little larger than was appropriate lately, I would settle for her simply not hating me anymore. She didn’t need to like me like I was starting to like her.
Because, let’s be honest, a grown man didn’t think about a grown woman as much as I thought about Eloise unless he was very romantically interested in her. It was bad. I was constantly thinking about her in my spare time, especially late at night when I was plagued with dirty thoughts and made-up scenarios about what the two of us would be like together physically.
The last time I had masturbated this much I was a teenage boy.
I needed to do something about this, to get out of this weird limbo I felt like I was in with her. Attending the beach day, and successfully having another outing that didn’t result in Eloise glaring daggers at me, seemed like a good start.